Zopa highlights rising cost of weddings for guests
THE AVERAGE wedding guest spends £390 on items such as accommodation and clothing, as the cost of attending a wedding celebration rises.
According to a new survey from peer-to-peer lender Zopa, Brits spend more than £112m to attend weddings every year, and the costs are rising.
Eight per cent of those surveyed said that they had spent more than £1,000 on someone else’s wedding, while a further three per cent had spent more than £2,000.
Accommodation was named as the most expensive element of a wedding, with an average of £140 spent on hotels, B’n’Bs and self-service apartments. Stag and hen do’s cost an average of £121 per person, while the average wedding gift cost £101.
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Almost a third (32 per cent) of guests told Zopa that they spent more money on weddings, yet 54 per cent fail to budget for these costs.
This has led Zopa to remind borrowers that it offers personal loans from £1,000 to £25,000 to people who need to fund a wedding, either as a bride, a groom, a parent or a guest.
“It’s not just the bridal couple that need to budget for weddings,” said Andrew Lawson, chief product officer at Zopa. “People spend hundreds, and sometimes thousands of pounds attending their friend or family’s special day, especially if they have more than one to go to in a year.
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“We all love a good wedding, and with a little budgeting you can make sure you enjoy all that the big day has to offer.”
According to the 2,000 people who were surveyed, celebrity weddings have contributed to the pressure to create the perfect day, with 55 per cent, while 32 per cent said that they had attended an overseas wedding over the previous 12 months, creating additional expenses.
New figures from Hitched.co.uk found that the average cost of hosting a wedding was £32,273 in 2018.
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